ATC won’t tell you how to vote this Saturday. But to help our members and supporters make an informed decision we’re giving you the bare facts on each main party and a careful assessment of what your vote may mean for Tibet.

The Result
Out of a possible 100 points the Greens finished ahead on 86 points, the Australian Labor Party finished with 35 points and the Coalition finished with 28 points.

Read more about the process and download details of the analysis

Grayndler in Sydney’s inner west is home to Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, with whom the local Tibetan community met back in November 2009. Though considered “safe Labor”, Grayndler is one of a number of progressive inner city seats where the Greens are on the rise and the correct electoral dynamic exists for a possible upset.

On Friday 6 August Sam Byrne, Greens candidate for Grayndler, met with Geshe Samten, teacher at Ashfield’s Vajrayana Institute, Namloyak, a former researcher with the International Campaign for Tibet, Thonden Ralo, a former president of the Tibetan Community of NSW and Tsering Kyinzom, a local Tibetan and student at the University of Sydney. Read more

In December 2009, three weeks after becoming Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott took the opportunity to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Sydney.

Mr. Abbott, during a press conference after the meeting, said the two discussed Australia’s humanitarian and political support to the Tibetan people. Mr. Abbott said he was happy for Australia to continue accepting refugees from Tibet.

What steps will your local candidates take for Tibet?

Help ATC’s 2010 Federal Election Campaign by contacting your local candidates to ask their position on Tibet and what they’d be willing to do if elected.

Click here for an easy-to-follow guide to who to contact and what to say!

Across the country ATC members in key electorates have been contacting their candidates to seek commitments on Tibet. The seat of Melbourne is one of the closest watched races in the country, being the only lower-house contest where, in 2007, the Greens out-polled the Liberal Party to finish second to Labor.

This week a small delegation including local Tibetan-Australian Temay Rigzin and Thupten Dhondup, President of the Tibetan Community of Victoria, approached the ALP’s Cath Bowtell and the Greens’ Adam Bandt to see what actions they’d be willing to take for Tibet if elected. Read more

While foreign policy is rarely an election issue, the outcome of a federal election inevitably has implications for Tibet and the role we can expect Australia to play on the world stage.

This year ATC has conducted comprehensive analysis on each party’s record on Tibet and China ahead of the election. In our exclusive guide “The 2010 Federal Election and Tibet” we present the bare facts on Labor, the Coalition and the Greens - what they are saying, what they are doing, how they have been voting - and offer an exclusive assessment on what your vote could mean.

Download the report: The Federal Election and Tibet

Last November seven Australian MPs and Senators spent two days in Lhasa as part of a 12-day official visit to China - the first Australian parliamentary delegation to travel to Tibet in nearly two decades. This week we take a look through the delegation’s findings, tabled in Parliament last week. We also take a look at the latest Lowey Institute poll on Australians’ attitudes towards China.

“The phrase ‘seeing is believing’ was used repeatedly by Chinese officials in relation to the visit in Tibet. However, the delegation was constrained in what it was able to see.”
- Official report on the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong in November 2009. Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. (p.18).

In November 2009, seven Australian MPs and Senators spent two days in Lhasa as part of a 12-day official visit to China - the first Australian parliamentary delegation to travel to Tibet in nearly two decades.

Last week Dr. Andrew Southcott MP, the delegation’s Deputy Leader, presented the delegation’s report to Parliament.

ATC staff met with several members of the delegation before and after the visit (see Political Update 4 November 2009). We reported on having been “impressed by the knowledge and motivation of the delegates with whom we met” and were most grateful for the time they put aside to meet with us. The report attests to the shrewdness of the delegation and their unwillingness to be taken for a ride. At the same time it affirms China’s nervousness at hosting foreign observers, discouragement of criticism, masking of sensitive issues and determination to propagate the state-sanctioned version of events.

“The delegation provided a valuable insight into the state of the relationship between Australia and China. But it also represented a missed opportunity, in that the delegation received no response to its requests to become better informed on the state of the Chinese energy and transport sectors, responses to the global financial crisis, trends in sustainable development and human rights. The delegation was also constrained in what it was able to see during its official visit to Tibet.” (p.2)

While containing all the usual acknowledgments and pleasantries of any official parliamentary document and pointing to a number of positive outcomes, the report is peppered throughout with signs of frustration at restricted access and a program that bore little resemblance to their objectives, no more so than in Tibet.

“Delegation members went into Tibet with an open mind to see ‘first hand’ the economic, social, religious and political situation to better inform themselves in regard to human rights. In order to achieve this, the delegation specifically requested an opportunity to meet with some of the Tibetan population and to visit a residential area.” (p.16)

The majority of the Lhasa visit consisted of a “cultural program”, including visits to the Potala Palace, Johkang Temple, Norbulingka and “Tibet Museum”. There was also an official meeting with members of the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region People’s Congress. Delegates were also taken to a new settlement outside of Lhasa.

The report notes the Tibet Museum’s “very strong emphasis upon a narrative that Tibet had for many many centuries been part of China” (p.17). Commendably, the report records its own more impartial version of Tibetan history in the introductory notes to its Tibet section.

The official meetings are described as “very cordial” (p.17), while again noting the hosts’ efforts to drill home the standard Chinese account of Tibet’s modern history.

Reflecting the delegation’s limited access beyond a series of tightly controlled site visits and formal receptions, the report sheds little light on the ground realities in Lhasa today.

“Whilst the delegation was the first official Parliamentary delegation into TAR in 19 years, it would have been helpful for the delegation to have had meetings with more individuals and groups to enable a greater appreciation of the state of TAR.” (p.17)

Comparing their visit to the 1991 delegation, the report notes that the MPs and Senators were “struck by the relative freedom of access offered to the previous visit” as compared to their own, “and the far more direct way in which Australia’s concerns were communicated and engaged with” (p.18).

Overall the report contains few if any surprises. Having observed closely other recent delegations, neither ATC nor the delegation were under any illusion as to the level of access they were likely to be granted.

Encouragingly, the report notes that “many useful discussions were held, one on one, after the formal proceedings of the receptions in each of the cities. The Chinese officials to whom delegates spoke welcomed these questions, were thoughtful and direct in their responses and did not shy away from areas of disagreement” (p.18). However, as such discussions fell outside of the formal proceedings they could not be recorded in the report. Individual delegates have told us of having made valuable person-to-person contacts, likewise not recorded in the report.

In conclusion, while ATC remains broadly supportive of this initiative and regards it is an important and positive step by the Australian Parliament, it has served also as a reminder of the difficulty of engaging constructively with the Chinese Government over Tibet at any level.

The Tibet section of the report concludes with the statement “It is hoped that future delegations to Tibet will have opportunities to see more” (p.18), and with the assertion that “There is no doubt the Australia-China relationship is robust enough for honest dialogue about human rights and other sensitive issues to occur without damaging the relationship” (p.18) - something we intend to hold them to!

Lowy Institute: 66% Not Satisfied with Rudd Government on Human Rights in China
Last week the Lowy Institute released its annual poll on “Australia and the World: Public Opinion and Foreign Policy”, a yearly barometer of everyday Australians’ attitudes to all things beyond our shores.

As with previous polls, a large section is given over to China, reflecting the central place China now seems to occupy on the minds of anyone with more than a passing interest in international affairs.

Significantly for us, and particularly as we approach the Federal election, 66% do not believe that Australia is doing enough to pressure China over human rights.

The results were so striking as to prompt Peter Hartcher, international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, to write an opinion piece on the matter:

As China rises, it demands a deference we should be wary to give

Hartcher picked up particularly on the fact that a majority of Australians (55%) consider China to be the world’s leading economic power. While this is incorrect (at least by any conventional measure as the US still has three times China’s GDP), it says a lot about our perception of China.

While 73% of Australians believe China’s growth has been good for Australia (up from 63% last year), 57% now believe that our government is allowing too much investment from China (up from 50%). 69% believe China’s aim is to dominate Asia (up from 60%) and, perhaps most remarkably of all, 46% believe China will become a military threat to Australia in the next 20 years (up from 41%).

If the public were aware of the full extent of Chinese intrusions into Australian political, educational and business life (see our 2009 report Courting the Dragon) then I suspect the results would be much higher still.

This week our attention was drawn to an article written by Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch and published in the influential US magazine Foreign Policy.

Is Talking to Beijing About Human Rights a Waste of Time? by Sophie Richardson

Published on the eve of the US-China Human Rights Dialogue, the article affirms many of ATC’s concerns about the way of our respective governments are choosing to engage China on human rights issues.

Two weeks earlier the Australian Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade released the results of a year-long enquiry into Human Rights Mechanisms in the Asia Pacific region.

Among the Committee’s key recommendations was a strengthening of existing bilateral human rights dialogues between Australia and countries in the Asia Pacific, including regular briefings to Parliament on the outcomes of these meetings. Read the Committee’s press release

Australia, like the US, UK and many other countries, engages in regular bilateral human rights dialogues with foreign countries, including China. These have become the main mechanisms through which the Australian Government works to encourage greater human rights protection abroad.

ATC has engaged actively with the Australia-China Human Rights Dialogue for a number of years, both providing input on cases and issues to be raised at each round and making recommendations for its improvement. Ahead of the 11th round (February 2009) ATC published a comprehensive review of the dialogue Read the review. Among many recommendations for improving accountability and promoting more concrete outcomes, the review argued strongly for regular reporting to Parliament, as since called for by the Human Rights Sub-Committee.

While this is a positive step, like our colleagues in the US and UK, ATC has long argued against over-reliance on a once-yearly official dialogue for promoting human rights in China. Such dialogues, we have argued, are only useful if part of a larger approach that includes regularly raising concerns publicly - something the Rudd Government promised back in 2008 but has largely failed to uphold since.

The usual rebuttal is that by confining its representations to a once-yearly meeting behind closed doors the Australian Government are able to raise sensitive issues without incurring China’s wrath and has some hope of a constructive engagement leading to genuine outcomes. But the process relies on China coming to the table in a spirit of cooperation and with a genuine desire to make progress. As yet we have been given little cause to believe this is the case.

In this update we begin thinking about the upcoming federal election, have a roundup the year’s activities so far and try and decipher the Prime Minister’s latest thinking on China.

Federal Election 2010
Federal elections are rarely if ever fought over matters of foreign policy. As the major parties spar endlessly over the domestic issues of the day, the world beyond our shores tends to drop further down the agenda.

Nonetheless, as polling day looms all politicians must turn their focus to shoring up support in their electorates. Later this year we’ll have another opportunity to let our local candidates know that if they want our vote we expect them to speak up for Tibet.

And there is work to be done. While support and awareness among parliamentarians of all parties has grown markedly over the last year, the Rudd Government has shied away from Tibet since 2008 (see latest opinion piece - “No Room for Tibet in Rudd’s ‘New Sinology’”) and the Coalition shows no sign of releasing a coherent policy on China or Tibet.

To put Tibet on the agenda of the new Government will take a strong effort from the Tibet movement in Australia. Contacting your local candidates to express your concern over the Tibetan situation and ask what each would do for Tibet if elected is important. But to encourage the major parties into taking a real stand on Tibet we will also have to work skillfully in marginal electorates.

Over the coming weeks we will be researching electorates and putting together what we hope is a genuinely strategic campaign for increasing further the support for Tibet in Canberra.

For now, here’s a roundup of news since our last political update:

10 March - Tibetan Uprising Day in Canberra
Not even the visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was enough to prevent a handful of supporters from the Federal Parliament from coming out onto the lawn to speak before a large crowd of Tibetans and Tibet supporters on Uprising Day. Some even excused themselves from an official function for the President to come and offer a few words of solidarity.

The Hon Peter Slipper MP addresses the 10 March rally in front of Parliament House. Hon Slipper was joined by Kelvin Thompson MP of the Labor Party and Senator Scott Ludlam of the Greens.

Addressing the rally Senator Scott Ludlam shared his frustration at the Government’s reluctance to take stronger action on Tibet, despite the obvious support among many parliamentarians.

Later in the day, a motion put to the Senate by Scott Ludlam noting the 51st anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising and outlining the enduring situation in Tibet was defeated. Addressing the Senate Mr. Ludlam criticised vehemently the Government’s failure to follow earlier expressions of concern over Tibet with any kind of action and the refusal of the major parties to face up to the present realities.

“You are about to vote down something that is so innocuous I was almost embarrased to put it up. …A number of us have had the honour of meeting the Dalai Lama or his representatives in Australia at different times - but don’t come out and do that and then vote down something that effectively calls on the Senate to note the facts on the ground, which is really all we are doing here today.” Senator Ludlam speaking in support of a Senate motion on Tibet on 10 March.

Senator Scott Ludlam addresses the 10 March rally infront of Parliament House.

Thanks to Tamdin Tsering, Tenpa Dugdak, Jigme Dorjee, Lhadar Ringpapontsang and others for organizing the day’s events.


Questioning the Rudd Government on Tibet
Much has been written over whether our growing economic ties with China are forcing the Government to keep quiet on Tibet and other human rights issues. Alarmed by the Government’s long silence on Tibet ATC asked Hon Peter Slipper MP to question the Foreign Minister over the Government’s policy on Tibet.

In early January Mr. Slipper received a reply from the Minister to a question in writing lodged back in October 2009. The answers affirm that Australia remains under some pressure to avoid the issue of Tibet in the interests of overall bilateral cooperation. Further analysis of our relationship with China under the Rudd Government is provided in the opinion piece “No Room for Tibet in Rudd’s ‘New Sinology’”.

It’s been a landmark year for Tibet in the Australian Parliament. On 10 December the Australian All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet capped-off a groundbreaking year by meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Melbourne. The group presented His Holiness with a report on their activities in 2009 and received a briefing from the Dalai Lama on the latest developments in Tibet and the opportunities ahead.

2009 saw the group take several important steps to build and consolidate support for Tibet within the Federal Parliament. The year saw a marked increase in the size and activity of the group and, most significantly, the first Australian Parliamentary delegation to Dharamsala.

Download the Australian All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet’s 2009 annual report.

Australia Represented at World Parliamentary Convention on Tibet
Last month Hon. Peter Slipper MP joined 132 parliamentarians from around the world at the Fifth World Parliamentarians Convention on Tibet. The meeting, held in Rome at the Italian Parliament over the 18 and 19 November, was an important step towards concerted international parliamentary action for Tibet. The meeting ended with the adoption of the Rome Declaration on Tibet.

An international group of parliamentarians attending the convention also wrote an open letter calling for discussion of the Tibetan Environment at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Read the open letter.

Seven MPs and Senators Return from Lhasa
Last month saw the first official Australian delegation to visit Tibet since 1991, with seven Australian MPs and Senators spending 48 hours in Lhasa as part of an official parliamentary delegation to China.

ATC briefed several members of the delegation before their departure and recently caught up with Senator Scott Ludlam and Mr. Sid Sidebottom MP on their return.

Among a handful of more positive observation, the returning delegates noted the presence of a significant number of nomads and pilgrims in Lhasa, suggesting that strict internal travel restrictions following the protests that began in March 2008 may have been eased. On the negative side however, the returning delegates described a visit so tightly controlled and scripted as to preclude any possibility of authentic interaction with local Tibetans. The delegation will table a report in Parliament next year.